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Can you help me with this, regarding philosophy of Skepticism?
After all, I could just be a brain in a vat, or a butterfly dreaming of a man, or a god dreaming of being a man.
But I still play at my game. What else is there to do?
If my one of core theories fails a test, then my house may collapse and I'll be forced to start over with a new game, a new hand of cards.
And it is with this little game of perception and guesses, that i have built up my perceived reality.
I am a Skeptic.
Cognito urgo sum
Let's play a game... kind of like a jigsaw puzzle.
Let's start
what is reality?
I perceive something.
Something that is not nothing.
this something is "information"
if this information is entirely random, then it would be pointless to think any further on it.
But I detect patterns in this seeming chaos.
with patterns, I can make guesses about the meanings of them
I can test these guesses.
If one of my guesses fails a test, then I can reject that guess and come up with a new and better one. One that hopefully includes everything I have now learned.
From this, I slowly build up a house of guesses. Guesses built upon guesses.
I can't say that my guesses will still be correct in the future... the patterns could all change or they could turn out to be random. I can't be sure that my guesses are correct in the past either. Furthermore, I can't be sure that the patterns I'm perceiving are actually true.
sorry, my description got twisted around. Just tack the beginning onto the ending if you know what I mean.
3 Answers
- Doom ShepherdLv 71 decade agoFavorite Answer
The First Assumption is always that you assume that your senses are not decieving you, and that you and the world you percieve are real.
If you reject this assumption, then one of two things happens:
1. You become paralyzed by doubt and unable to function.
2. You act a fool because you don't believe that your actions have consequences.
Where you use guesses, I would use "likelihoods." If educated, our guesses are built upon the likelihood that what happened in the past will continue to happen in the same way in the future. Absolute certainty is impossible, but reasonable, even overwhelming, certainty is not. At some point, the patterns become so well-established that expecting other outcomes becomes fruitless, and the world becomes predictable.
- 1 decade ago
Any answer I give you would be the product of your own mind, but, working on the premise that it isn't, try reading Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy, but go easy on his cosmological and ontological arguments for God because they're shaky enough as is.
Failing that you might want to research into Pyronian scepticism.
- Jim BLv 41 decade ago
I SEE WHERE YOU ARE GOING,HOWEVER MUCH TO DEEP FOR ME. PLEASANT TO PONDER THO., BUT IF YOU ARE TRYING TO FIND TRUTH IN HUNCHES AND GUESSES,WILL U FIND THE TRUTH? HAD SOME VODKA, I THINK MORE CLEARLY! MAYBE MORE TO COME. YOUR MIND DOES WANDER!.SIMPLY FOCUS A TAD MORE.CLARITY!
